Scrapper Sienna keeps on smiling

FROM the on-off engagement to Jude Law, to the rumoured romance with father-of-four Balthazar Getty, via the lovelorn Welsh actor Rhys Ifans who proposed three times, it feels like we know more about Sienna Miller’s relationship credentials than her acting ones.

FROM the on-off engagement to Jude Law, to the rumoured romance with father-of-four Balthazar Getty, via the lovelorn Welsh actor Rhys Ifans who proposed three times, it feels like we know more about Sienna Miller’s relationship credentials than her acting ones.

It’s a fact hasn’t bypassed the 27-year-old actress, who’s more than aware of the impact her very public break-up with Law in 2005 had on her career.

It set the tone for life in the world’s spotlight. Hounded by the paparazzi, Sienna hit back and has won numerous legal battles against newspapers and photo agencies in an attempt to protect her privacy.

“Yes, being on the cover of a magazine appeals to studios. But it plays against your work. A lot of people still feel I’m not a proper actress,” she said in an interview last year. In the same interview, she admitted to being “a people pleaser” who needed to learn to learn to censor herself.

Fast forward to 2009 and talking to the actress about her latest role as The Baroness in GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra, it’s clear Sienna has toughened up.

Even in vertiginous heels, Sienna makes a petite figure, her slim frame accentuated by a fitted military-style white shirt and high-waist black trousers. More ‘pretty girl groomed’ than intimidatingly stunning, it’s her wide, open smile that’s the movie star give-away.

And today, wearing a deep red lipstick that sets off her mega-watt smile perfectly, she uses it to great effect, even if at times it seems at odds with her guarded posture. Her arms remain crossed for most of the interview and while she talks a lot, she says very little.

“I’m a good coper,” is what she will say on being tabloid fodder. “I’m a very happy person and I’ve got a very great, fortunate life and I’m really just generally happy.”

“You can’t give it any attention,” she says. “I can’t anymore. I used to get very hurt and upset but at this point it is what it is. I’m a bit of a trooper,” she adds with a light laugh. “You have to be and the people that know and love you know what you’re really like.”

Sienna and her fellow cast members, including Dennis Quaid and Step Up’s Channing Tatum, are in London, on the second stop of a world wide tour to promote the summer blockbuster GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra.

Based on the characters of the comic book and action figure, this is Sienna’s first big budget Hollywood movie.

“Initially, I was really intimidated because it was a crew of a thousand and the sets were obviously enormous,” she says. “But I quickly adapted and it was so much fun, it was a really, really cool experience.”

Plus she gets to play femme fatale and all round kick-ass villain, The Baroness.

“I strut the whole way through,” she says laughing. “It’s great being the villain because you get the best props, the best guns, the best outfits. There was lots of squinting and pouting, you can really go for it on a film like this.”

In a film where scenes include an exploding Eiffel Tower and a water-themed battle underneath the polar ice cap, it’s no surprise to hear CGI effects set the tone.

“It’s a real challenge and requires a lot of imagination,” says Sienna on her first foray onto the green screen, where cast react to tennis balls rather than actors and effects are added later.

“You just have to trust that Stephen [Sommers, the man behind The Mummy] knows what he’s doing. When he says, ‘This is what the final project will look like’, you just have to believe it’s going to work out and it has.”

There were some explosions on set though, one of which went off a little too close for comfort. “I got a tiny burn on my chest and that of course has been completely blown out of proportion and now I’ve burnt my entire breasts off according to press,” Sienna says of the incident.

There will no doubt be scores of hormone-fuelled teenage boys thanking Stephen for the array of skin tight outfits Sienna and her co-star Rachel Nicholas wear for the duration of the film.

But with cat suits and fight scenes comes exercise.

“I had to get fit for the first time in my life, so that was entertaining,” says Sienna.

But the six weeks’ intensive fight training and martial arts paid off and by her own admission, Sienna says she’s “a good little scrapper now” before flexing one of her tiny arms. “I just couldn’t believe it. I’d be like, ‘Oh my goodness, I’ve got a muscle’ but it’s all gone to pot now.”

As with any movie franchise, action figures are a must and Sienna admits the cast have had great time in teasing one another over their respective miniature replicas. As for the rumours that Sienna doesn’t like hers, she says, “I love it, it’s hilarious. It’s really funny to have a doll, it’s just that she looks a little bit...” (She makes a cross-eyed facial expression to illustrate her point.)

“But I’ve got very happy nieces and nephews when they get my doll for Christmas,” she adds.

Away from the focus on the men in her life, Sienna has quietly been growing critical acclaim for her performances in small, independent movies, such as The Edge Of Love where she played Dylan Thomas’s wife Caitlin opposite Keira Knightley and her stellar performance as Edie Sedgwick in Factory Girl.

Asked why she’s decided to go big budget, she says: “It was such a relief to do something that was just pure entertainment and fun.”